Belle Gunness: The Black Widow of Indiana and Her Murder Farm

Belle Gunness, the Norwegian immigrant turned Midwestern "Lady Bluebeard," ran one of the most prolific killing operations in American history on her quiet Indiana farm. From roughly 1902 to 1908, she lured dozens of men to her property with promises of love and marriage, only to rob, murder, and bury them in shallow graves under the hog lot. Estimates of her victims range from 25 confirmed to possibly 40 or more, with investigators finding dismembered heads, torsos, and limbs scattered across her land. Her crimes combined classic serial-killer cunning - personal ads, poison, axes, and fire - with a chilling domestic facade that fooled neighbors for years.​

Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth arrived in the U.S. from Norway in 1881 at age 21, anglicizing her name to Belle after settling in Chicago's immigrant neighborhoods. She worked as a servant before marrying Mads Sorenson, a fellow Norwegian, in 1884. Their marriage produced two children, but tragedy struck early: daughter Clara died mysteriously of acute colitis in 1898, followed by Sorenson himself from what doctors called the same ailment - on the one day the two life insurance policies overlapped.​

Belle collected on both payouts and moved to La Porte, Indiana, buying a large brick house and 42 acres of fertile farmland in 1901. There, she married Peter Gunness, a widower with several children, in 1902. Just nine months later, Peter died when a "saddle bag" mysteriously fell from a loft and crushed his skull while Belle and her children watched. She received another insurance check and promptly expanded the farm with hired hands, including Ray Lamphere, her lover and handyman. Peter's young daughter Jennie also vanished around this time, with Belle claiming she had returned to Illinois.​

These deaths raised eyebrows among locals, but Belle's charm and growing wealth,fueled by farm income and auctions of victims' belongings, kept serious suspicion at bay. She began placing "personal ads" in Norwegian-American newspapers like the Chicago Inter Ocean and La Porte Herald, targeting lonely widowers and farmers with promises of a "handsome good widow lady" seeking a strong partner to share her prosperous homestead.​

Belle's ads were masterful bait, blending flattery, stability, and sensuality: "Personal—Comely Widow, in comfortable circumstances, would like to hear from gentleman of means and honorable intentions... no triflers need apply." Respondents, often recent immigrants or isolated farmers, sent letters, photos, and life savings - sometimes $1,000 to $3,000, a fortune equivalent to $30,000–$90,000 today. Belle replied with affectionate notes, inviting them to visit her La Porte farm to discuss marriage and pooling resources.

​Once they arrived, typically by train to the nearby station, the men vanished. Neighbors saw them dine with Belle, hear her play piano, and tour the property, but they never left. Belle later claimed they had returned home or moved west after soured romances. In reality, she fed them drugged stew or coffee laced with prussic acid, then bashed their skulls with an axe while unconscious. She chopped bodies into pieces, packed them in sacks, and buried them under soft soil in the hog pen, where pigs quickly scattered any evidence. Valuables - watches, cash, horses - went to auction, sold openly in La Porte without drawing notice.​

One reconstructed sequence comes from victim Ole B. Heglelien, a South Dakota widower who sent Belle $1,500 before visiting in early 1908. His brother Asle grew worried after letters stopped and traveled to La Porte. Belle spun tales of Ole leaving for California, but Asle alerted authorities, setting the investigation in motion.​

On April 27, 1908, a fiery explosion gutted Belle's farmhouse around 4 a.m. Neighbors rushed to the scene, where Ray Lamphere helped fight the blaze. Firefighters found four charred bodies inside: three small children (Belle's surviving daughters, ages 5–11) and a headless adult woman, too badly burned for immediate identification but roughly matching Belle's size. Lamphere claimed Belle had fled with a "mysterious lover," selling the farm beforehand.​

Suspicious La Porte sheriff Roy Lamin smelled arson and ordered an inquest. Asle Helgelien, meanwhile, organized a dig in the hog lot with his brother Olaf, a gravedigger. On May 5, they unearthed the first sack: Ole's recognizable remains, minus the head, with his watch still ticking underground. Word spread, and soon hundreds of locals and reporters swarmed the site. Over weeks, workers recovered 28 victims' remains - mostly decapitated men, some women and children, packed in gunny sacks with quicklime to speed decomposition. A watch engraved "O.B.H." confirmed Ole; dental records and clothing remnants identified others like John Moo, Emil Greening, and Andrew Nelson.

The death toll climbed as Belle's trunk yielded more letters and cash. Sheriff Lamin tallied $12,000–$15,000 in laundered funds. Press dubbed the property "Murder Farm" and Belle "Hell's Belle," "Mrs. Satan," and "The Mistress of Murder Hill." Crowds picnicked nearby, buying souvenirs like "Gunness Stew" from vendors.​

Ray Lamphere went on trial for arson and murder in November 1908. He claimed innocence of the killings but accused Belle of masterminding them, saying she faked her death to escape with loot. A jury convicted him of arson but acquitted on murder. Before his 14-year sentence, Lamphere dictated a deathbed confession in 1909 (published January 1910): Belle had hired a doctor to procure a headless body double, poisoned her kids, set the fire, and escaped disguised as a hired woman, heading to California or Norway with $200,000.​

Was the headless corpse Belle? Autopsy by Dr. Wide Harris pegged the victim at 160–175 pounds, 5'7"–5'8", with Belle listed at 5'8", 200 pounds, and a prominent front tooth absent on the corpse. No dental match. Rumors swirled: a 1931 Mississippi arrest as "Emma Hickey," a 1908 San Francisco hotel guest named "Belle Gul," even Norwegian sightings. Modern DNA tests on the body and known Gunness relatives have failed to confirm, leaving her fate open.​

Belle's daughter Jennie, exhumed from a nearby cemetery, showed signs of axe violence -likely an early victim. Other possibles include farmhand Bert Lamphere (Ray's brother) and transient workers. Estimates hold at 40–48 total, with some remains too fragmented for ID.​

Belle Gunness exposed the perils of early-20th-century lonely hearts scams, predating Nannie Doss and Dorothea Puente while echoing modern catfishing killers. Her farm, now a residential lot, draws true-crime tourists; the La Porte Historical Society displays artifacts. Books like Hell's Princess (2018) and PBS documentaries synthesize the archive, confirming her as America's deadliest known female serial killer by body count.​

What drove her? Greed seems central - insurance, dowries, auctions - but contemporaries whispered of revenge against rejecting suitors or a twisted psyche warped by early losses (Belle claimed a stepfather assaulted her in Norway). She operated undetected amid lax forensics and rural isolation, her ad money buying silence from handymen. Belle Gunness wasn't just a killer; she industrialized murder, turning courtship into a conveyor belt of death on a wholesome Indiana farm.